The Surprising Connection Between Nightbooks And Krysten Ritter's Most Underrated Performance

Contains spoilers for "Nightbooks"

Now that it's September, the weather is slowly turning colder, and the sun is hiding earlier and earlier each day, the Halloween season is in full force. And after you stop by the local bodega for candy you should give to trick-or-treaters but won't, the next logical step is to consume massive amounts of horror.

Netflix is already onto all of us already in the Halloween spirit, and they've released an all-ages horror film starring Krysten Ritter called "Nightbooks." The film, based on the children's novel of the same name by J.A. White, tells the story of a horror-loving boy named Alex (Winslow Fegley) who, after a minor mishap at school, runs away from home only to accidentally find himself in the clutches of an evil witch named Natacha (Ritter). In exchange for not being brutally murdered by Natacha, Alex agrees to tell the witch a new scary story every night.

On its surface, you can see there's an obvious influence on "Nightbooks" — the collection of Middle Eastern folk tales, "One Thousand and One Nights." Much like Alex, the narrator of those stories, Scheherazade, tells stories every night in order to stay alive.

However, there is another story, one which also stars Krysten Ritter, which bears more than a passing resemblance to "Nightbooks:" the underrated sitcom "Don't Trust the B—- in Apartment 23." Yes, really.

Krysten Ritter is known for many major roles: She was Jane Margolis in the prestige show "Breaking Bad," and, of course, she played Jessica Jones as part of Marvel's slate of Netflix shows. However, the lesser known part many of her biggest fans adore the most is that of Chloe, the titular b— who lives in apartment 23.

"Don't Trust the B—- in Apartment 23" has a simple plot: A young woman named June (Dreama Walker) is tricked into becoming the roommate of Chloe (Ritter). Because June is struggling with her life both personally and professionally, she finds herself trapped in her living situation as Chloe maliciously antagonizes June for her own, personal amusement.

If you think about it for more than a couple of seconds, you'll realize that the basic premises of "Don't Trust the B—-" and "Nightbooks" are effectively identical. Both involve Ritter trapping an innocent in an apartment and both involve her enjoying the suffering of said innocent.

However, if that was all that connected these two properties, we wouldn't have much to discuss.

The remainder of this story contains spoilers for both "Nightbooks" and "Don't Trust the B—- in Apartment 23."

In "Don't Trust the B—- in Apartment 23," we are introduced to Chloe at a point where she is the one who lures innocents into her apartment to torment them and take their money. However, when Chloe first moved to New York, she was just as doe-eyed as June or any of Chloe's many other roommates.

In "Nightbooks," Alex and his newfound friend Yasmin (Lidya Jewett) discover that they are not the first children to be lured into Natacha's magical apartment. In fact, they begin to discover notes hidden in books throughout the apartment's library which hint at one innocent who even figured out a means to escape.

It turns out the girl who wrote those notes is actually Natacha herself. Yes, much like Chloe, Natacha was also innocent once — and the similarities don't stop there.

In "Don't Trust the B—-" we find out in an episode called "The Original B—-" that there was another woman named Trish (Sarah Wright) who is responsible for turning Chloe into the person she is. At the end of "Nightbooks" we find out that the witch from the Grimm fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel" is real, captured Natacha as a child, and controlled the magical apartment first. When this information is revealed, they even refer to the classic fairytale villain as "the original witch."

In short, Natacha and "Nightbooks" is just about as close as we'll ever get to a return of one of the greatest cult TV shows of all time, "Don' Trust the B—- in Apartment 23" — and we're very grateful for it.

"Nightbooks" is streaming on Netflix now and "Don't Trust the B—- in Apartment 23" is streaming on Hulu.